A Journey's End
by rexyplexy
Summary: It was an age-old tradition to send one's young child away to start their Pokemon adventures upon reaching the age of ten. It was a tradition that seldom ever changed, despite the fact that the world around them was slowly evolving and becoming more dangerous.


1 **A Journey's End**

It was an age-old tradition to send one's young child away to start their Pokemon adventures upon reaching the age of ten. It was a tradition that seldom ever changed, despite the fact that the world around them was slowly evolving and becoming more dangerous. Parents and many other's would decide to turn a blind eye away from these facts, as they would tell themselves that nothing had changed since they were young and had gotten their first Pokemon. However, there was the few that knew of the dangers and decided to simply give their child a Pokemon to keep as a pet while they continue to stay at home. This did work for a little bit, but children do tend to get anxious with wanting to do as their parents had done and go travel their region; after-all, their friends were allowed to go on journey's, so why not them?

She had been able to keep her daughter subdued with a cute little Glameow for a couple of years, but upon her thirteenth birthday, she too began to itch for the glorified travelling. She wanted to be a great trainer and collect as many Pokemon as she could, which was to be impossible from her home; she couldn't even buy Poke'balls without a proper trainer's licence that she never had the chance to acquire. So the day after her birthday, she packed her bags and confronted her mother with a permission slip that would allow her to get her licence and start her journey; her mother was, of course, unwilling at first. However, she did allow herself to think about it and decided that since her daughter was indeed older, that perhaps she would relent. She had been even younger than her daughter when she went on her journey with her beloved Meowstic and she had been just fine. Maybe the neighbours were right and she was just over-reacting.

Her excited daughter and her Glameow were gone the next day, off to who knows where, much to her mother's worry. As the days slowly went by, her mother's worry slowly subsided as her daughter made sure to call her multiple times throughout the day excitedly telling her of the many events that took place. However, her calls soon became fewer and fewer until they eventually just stopped; this was when her mother's fear came back to her ten-fold as all she could do was wait as the weeks slowly went by without a word. Nearly a month had gone by when that fateful day arrived.

It started off as usual with her mother going about the day's chores like usual to keep her mind off of things, hoping that she would receive that long awaited call from her daughter. It was then, around noon, did she hear a very affirmative knock on the door; jumped up, she rushed over to great her guest, hoping by a small chance that it was just her girl returning home to rest. Though what she had not been expecting was for it to be Officer Jenny and for the very few words that she had said, to cause her whole world to come crashing down around her. Things happened all too fast and she could barely usher a conscious thought as she fell to her knees with a torrent of wails escaping from her body in that moment. She could barely even register that apologies that the officer had ushered as she sat down a single Poke'ball on the counter before taking her leave.

More weeks went by and many people came and went along with their condolences, their fake sorrow caught on deaf ears as the mother resented their words each time. Oh how she had tried to tell them the dangers of their world, only for them to tell her she was over-reacting before they scoffed right in her face. Now, they could barely even look at her as they knew that she had been right all of this time. As more time passed, the Poke'ball began to collect dust; she hadn't meant to neglect it, no not at all. However, she could barely look at it without bursting out into tears; every time she came close, seeing the colorful stickers decorating the ball, she would always come to the conclusion that her daughter hadn't been as old as she tried to be.

As nearly a year passed by since that horrible day, the girl's mother finally took it upon herself to clean out her daughter's room. Now, she didn't have it within herself to throw anything away, but looking at it was far too painful; setting it safely in storage until she told herself that she was fully healed, would just have to do for now. And as she walked past that dusty ball on the counter for what must have been the millionth time, she finally paused and looked at it. With a frown she sat the box that she was carrying down onto the counter and picked up the Poke'ball with great care. Taking a rag out of her pocket, she gently rubbed it clean of everything that had been collecting on top of it; taking a deep breath, she finally pressed the button that would free the Pokemon.

Her eyes widened, for it had not been the Glameow that she had expected it to be; standing in front of her was a rather skittish-looking and malnourished Absol. It let out a small whimper as it looked around in surprise, turning around, the girl's mother let out a small gasp; this pokemon had only three legs. Small tears began to trickle down the woman's face for the first time in months as she knew that only her daughter would find it in her heart to travel with such a broken creature. The woman let out a sigh as she wondered what had become of the Glameow, knowing very well that this Pokemon was the only one of her daughter's team that survived the accident. Sadly looking down at the stickers that decorated Absol's Poke'ball, she came to the realization that it didn't matter that this Pokemon was broken, for her daughter had obviously loved it anyway.

"Are you hungry, Absol?" The woman asked the scrawny Pokemon, her own voice sounding foreign to her after not talking for so long. The Pokemon looked up at her in surprise, its eyes shining with sorrow, though it's body language said that it was greatly confused. Perhaps it didn't even realize what had happened to its trainer and the rest of the team. "Come along and I'll make you my daughter's favourite."

The Absol let out a whine, but followed after the woman as she walked into the kitchen anyway, so it appeared that the Pokemon was aware of what had happened. Of course, things didn't exactly get better right away and they never truly did, but the woman was very thankful for Absol. She enjoyed taking care of the disabled Pokemon and felt that it was what her daughter would have wanted her to do, feeding it and giving it the love that it had most-likely been deprived of.

And on those incredibly difficult nights, the Absol would repay her, by leaping into the woman's bed and allowing her to hold it and weep into it's pure white fur. All the while crying out her daughter's name.


End file.
